I subscribe to the New York Times Sunday edition.  The diverse content, the quality of journalism and fine writing provide a weeks-worth of pleasurable reading.  The Arts and Leisure section for Sunday the 12th (Easter) featured a piece entitled Searching for a Jesus Who Looks Like Me.  The topic was the range of personal images of Jesus, reflecting the cultures, genders, and…sexual orientations of the creators of the images.  The images were selected by Eric V. Copage, the writer.

I am not a fan generally of Christian renderings of Jesus.  By my understanding, the point of Christianity is a practice of a way-of-life, the type of life which Jesus exemplified, and proposed through his teaching.  Therefore, what Jesus looked like, whether he was lean, tall or short and rotund is beside the point.  Perhaps he was effeminate? I do not know.  It makes no difference.  Therefore … the effort to fashion in artistic form, an image of Jesus that seems like he was  _______ is a worthy project.

Posted here are several of the ones that captured my imagination, caused me to feel how interested I would have been to encounter “that” Jesus.

The third image in the series is one that belongs to me.  That one did not appear in the Times article.

Finally, I have always thought images of Buddha were in a different category than those of Christian iconography.  Buddha is typically rendered in a meditation, lotus posture.  The practice of meditation is a key to realizing the Four Noble Truths.  Thus the renderings of the Buddha stimulate the viewer toward meditation.

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And this in the New York Times Morning Briefing  April, 19

The rallies, like the one outside the state Capitol in Austin, Texas, above, rode a wave of similar protests this past week. On Saturday alone, people also gathered in Indianapolis, Ind.; Carson City, Nev.; Annapolis, Md.; Salt Lake City, Utah, and Brookfield, Wis.

President Trump on Friday openly encouraged the right-wing protests in states with stay-at-home orders, even after officially and publicly conceding that reopening was up to governors.

And so we descend into a vortex of social unrest, fomented by the President of the United States.

I am at a loss for any words.